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QUESTION 1: Trends in Computer Technology
Shortly summarize the growth rate in computer performance every
year and provide justification.
Refer to annual: (1) microprocessor clock rate, (2) chip density
(transistor), (3) DRAM and Disk
access times, (4) DRAM and Disk memory capacity, and (5) usage
of address bits. Determine the
new trends in computer architecture with respect to Internet,
networking and multimedia
requirements.
Solution:
The rate of growth is: (1) 50% for the peak MIPS speed, (2) 66%
for the number of transistors (chipdensity), (3) 5 times a year for
the memory and disk capacity, and (4) 7% for the memory access
time, (5) usage of address bits is increased by 20% per year.
The CPU architecture is shifting from
the traditional computing computer to the multimedia and
internet computers. This has deep
consequences on the architecture. The unpredictable hierarchical
memory is not likely to be very
useful because of the need for predictable real-time processing
for multimedia. I/O streaming
between memory and the display is another important aspect for
future computers. The new trends in
computer architecture are due to the Internet, networking, and
multimedia requirements involving
extensive use of computer graphics, SIMD CPU extension with the
use of narrow data (bytes), I/O
streaming to shorten the path to display, real-time aspects and
worst-case guaranteed performance to
support QoS, support to fine-grain and coarse-grain parallelism
for advanced multimedia algorithms,
high code locality, very high network bandwidth, etc.
QUESTION 2: Processor-Memory Performance Gap
1. Since year 2000 the clock frequency of Intel IA32 processors
is growing at a rate of
approximately 1.54 per year. In 2005, the reference clock rate
is 3 GHz. What is the expected
clock frequency CF of IA32 processor in year 2010.
2. The access time of some DRAM memory is shrinking by a factor
of 6% per year. It is estimated
to be 27 ns in year 2005. What is the expected access time AT of
the same DRAM in year 2010.
3. Denote by N(k) the ratio of the DRAM access time over the
processor clock time, where k is the
year. Evaluate N for k=2005 and k=2010 and comment on growth
rate of N.
Solution:
1. The expected processor clock frequency in year 2010 is CF = 3
* (1.54)^5 = 25.986 GHz2. The expected access time of DRAM in year
2010 is AT = 27 * (0.94)^5 = 19.82 ns
3. The expected value of N in year 2005 is N= AT / (1/CF) = AT *
CF = 27 * 3 = 81. Therefore, in
year 2010 we have N = 27 * (0.94)^5 * 3 * (1.54)^5 = 27 * 3*
(0.94*1.54)^5 = 514.92. The
gap between processor speed and DRAM access time is growing
which is an indicator of the
need of new techniques to improve performance of cache
memory.
QUESTION 3: MIPS Assembly Language Programming
Consider the following fragment of C code:
for (i=0; i
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add $s0, $s0, 1 ; Add 1 to N to exit when s0=0Loop: sub $s0,
$s0, 1 ; decrement N
sub $t0, $t0, 4 ; increment the index i by 4
add $t2, $t1, 1 ; evaluate pointer i for V[]
add $t4, $t3, 4 ; evaluate pointer i for W[]
Lw $t5, 0($t2) ; load array element V[i]
Lw $t6, 0($t4) ; load array element W[i]
Add $t5, $t5, $t6 ; compute V[i]= V[i]+ W[i]
Sw $t5, 0($t2) ; store the value of V[i]+ W[i]
bneq $s0, $zero, loop ; Loop if N is not zero
The number of instructions are executed during the running of
this code is 9x100+1=901
The number of memory data references made during execution is
3*100=300
QUESTION 4: Internet search (No solution will be provided)
Search on the Internet for current technology on the following
issues:
1. The RISC and CISC architectures, comparing them, and giving
examples of processors from
each class.2. The most recent PC-based DRAM technology, and
determine its most important functional
features.
3. The most recent PC-based INTEL microprocessor, summarize its
architecture, determine its
most important functional features, and present the type of
services that are targeted by its
design.
For each of the above the student is expected to summarize his
finding and attach a copy of the
referenced papers.
